


His Hammer Is My Axe

by azephirin



Series: Cracked Stars Shining [13]
Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Harry Potter - Rowling, Political RPF, Political RPF - US 21st c.
Genre: Crack, Cracked Stars Shining, Established Relationship, Interracial Relationship, M/M, POV Female Character, Workplace, Yo Mama Jokes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-17
Updated: 2010-09-17
Packaged: 2017-10-11 23:43:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/118454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azephirin/pseuds/azephirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the White House, you can be on the pitcher's mound or you can be in the catcher's position.</p>
            </blockquote>





	His Hammer Is My Axe

**Author's Note:**

> **Warning:** Exists outside of reality, canon, and good taste.  
>  **Author's note** : This is set in the [Cracked Stars Shining](http://archiveofourown.org/works/21206/chapters/27496) 'verse but is entirely the product of my brain rubbing its (metaphorical) hands together and chortling with unholy glee. Title from the song by [Emery Reel](http://www.emeryreel.com/); the summary is a quotation by Rahm Emanuel. Thanks (or blame, depending on your point of view) to [](http://katomyte.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**katomyte**](http://katomyte.dreamwidth.org/) for encouragement (or enabling).  
>  **Disclaimer** : I can state with certainty that this never happened. Also, none of the copyrighted characters belong to me.

Hermione’s shift ends, and, after she tidies, balances the till, and hands the bar over to Flipper (back from Portland temporarily), she goes into the back room for a cup of tea and to say hello to Faith and Ginevra before she goes home.

Faith, Hermione notes with disapproval, is meant to be studying for her anthropology midterm examination, but instead has taken a seat at a table with Ginevra and a man Hermione doesn’t recognize. He’s small, probably no taller than Faith, with gray hair and blunt features that nevertheless manage to be handsome. The three of them are laughing uproariously over something; the man clinks glasses with Faith and they both take a drink.

“Oh?” says Ginevra, as though in response to a statement by one of the other two. “Well, your mother—” She concludes with a pronouncement of such fantastic obscenity that Hermione can’t help the widening of her eyes.

The group falls apart with laughter a second time; the man collects himself enough to say, “Fucking well done!” He pauses, then adds, “Although it’s a little goddamn disturbing that somebody your age knows what a dirty Sanchez is.”

“I read about it on the Internet,” Ginevra informs him proudly, as though describing a venture into exotic and unknown lands. Which, it’s true, the Web might be, for a pureblood wizard.

“And that,” the man says, “is why my kids aren’t allowed to have computers until they’re thirty.” Changing topics, he begins, “Your mom’s so fat—”

When he finishes, Ginevra snorts, Faith roars, and the Kupe demons playing poker in the corner (at a table piled high with plush toys shaped like cats) actually look up from their game.

Hermione decides to say hello and go home, because this environment does not appear conducive to peaceful postshift tea-drinking.

Ginevra recovers enough to notice her. “Mione! You should sit down with us.”

She shakes her head. “Thank you, but I just popped in to say hello before I go back to the flat.”

“This is Rahm,” Faith says. “He’s in town with some friends. Rahm, this is Hermione—she and Ginevra are roommates.”

The man stands to shake her hand, and says, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Hermione,” in a completely normal tone, as though two minutes ago he didn’t make a perfectly appalling suggestion regarding a woman’s girth and her capacity for multiple simultaneous sexual partners. “You sure you don’t want to join us?”

Hermione is about to gracefully decline a second time when the rear door opens. An elderly woman, wizened and stooped, walks inside—and then the air shimmers with the diffusion of a glamour, and in the woman’s place stands a straight-backed man in his forties, as tall and lanky as Rahm is compact and wiry, sharp-eyed, good-looking despite his slightly outsized ears.

Ginevra doesn’t display any recognition; Faith’s eyebrows, however, rise abruptly and instantaneously. Rahm whirls to face the newcomer and bursts out, “What in the name of Jesus’s hairy cock are you fucking doing here without your detail?”

“You’re Jewish,” the man says mildly, “and that’s disgusting.”

“What the fuck ever, my blasphemy observes no religious boundaries, now tell me where your fucking detail is before I call the goddamn service myself and tell them that a bunch of their incompetents were too busy licking their own assholes to do their fucking jobs and ensure the safety of the next president of this Godforsaken country.”

“Your standards are slipping, Rahm: I only counted three _fuck_ s in that sentence,” the man responds, still mild.

Rahm takes a mobile from his pocket and brandishes it threateningly.

The man sighs, but offers only, “I wanted some time alone,” by way of explanation.

“Newsflash, you Harvard-educated retard, you don’t get any time alone if you get that new job. And I don’t care how good your fucking mojo glamour bullshit is; somebody out there is going to hate your ass enough to try to do it better, and there need be some Secret Service and Aurors around to kill the fuck out them when they do.”

The man steps closer to Rahm and lays a long-fingered hand on the side of his face, intimate and loving, and Hermione feels as though she should look away. Rahm shifts, as though battling an instinct to turn towards the caress. “Rahm,” the man says, “I promise I won’t get myself killed.”

“I’m not fucking worried about you doing it to yourself, moron,” Rahm snaps, but in a quieter voice that speaks more to longtime concern than to true anger. “It’s the shiteaters who’re raring to do it for you.”

The other man does not, Hermione notes, promise to be safe, or not to do it again; rather, he leans down and kisses Rahm’s mouth exquisitely gently.

Faith’s mouth actually drops open.

Rahm’s eyes close but his fists clench, as though he can’t help returning the kiss but he’s still fighting it, still angry.

“Where’s your detail?” the taller man asks, quietly.

“Who the fuck do you think is sitting over there playing poker? Jesus in a whorehouse, Barack, I’m not saying don’t go anywhere ever again—I’m just saying to use that egghead liberal elite brain”—the other man, Barack, smiles wryly as though it’s a phrase he’s heard before—“and don’t be a dumbfuck about it.”

Barack nods, but Hermione can’t tell whether it’s acquiescence or merely acknowledgment. “We need to get back,” he says. “And Amy and Michelle both asked me to remind you that we’re speaking tonight to veterans of the Second World War, not the Larry Flynt and Gilbert Gottfried fan club.”

“Oh, fuck you,” Rahm says, but it’s truly without rancor now. “Let me say bye to the girls, and then you can beam us out of here.”

“It’s not—”

“Yeah, I know it’s called something else; whatever, there’s no intelligent life down here anyway. Present company excepted. Except for you.”

Barack doesn’t grace this with a reply. Rahm takes his leave of Hermione, again without profanity, then Ginevra, then Faith, and the two of them exchange a back-thumping hug of the type more often shared between two men. “Lack of blackmail is always appreciated,” Rahm tells her.

“You know that what happens in the back room stays in the back room,” she answers. “Let me know about the fundraiser—a few expander spells, and we can fit a lot of people up front.”

“We’ll talk,” he says, and kisses her cheek. Then he goes back over to Barack. “Beam me up, Scotty,” Rahm says, and Barack wraps his arms around him.


End file.
